toytown

While Barbieland was designed to look like a toytown California, sets such as Barbie's Dreamhouse were built and filmed in the UK studio.

Barbie's pink paradise, Barbieland, was designed to look like a toytown California.

Alan Simpson, managing director of Toytown, a chain of independent retailers based in Belfast, is urging customers to start their Christmas shopping early this year.

He says that although Toytown can try to pre-empt some of the price rises to help mitigate them, the problem is "right across the board", affecting many retailers.

He also developed a passion for creating gadgets, inspired by a character called The Inventor, on the BBC Children's series, Toytown.